Crochet Bags and Tiny Teddies

The craft trolley was bathed in glorious sunshine yesterday evening. Things have been selling well. A new pot of magical wands has been added as well as tiny crochet toadstools, colourful crochet bags and cute kittens.

There are bunches of dried flowers grown in the garden, willow wreaths for hallowe`en, pots of home-made jam, worry worms .... it is an eclectic mix.

I have been trying out a new pattern for crochet bags. It consists of 15 granny squares. They are sewn into a bucket shape. The squares are fun to make but the handle is a bit long-winded.
 

Other crochet bags I have tried out .....

 

 

And some keyrings.

And the tiniest teddies yet, wrapped in a cosy blanket and sitting in a little box home.

I have spent some time on fairies for my great-niece who has a birthday coming up. I will take some photos and post in another blog entry.

For now here are the fairies I bought at a boot fair today for £1 each .... what a bargain.

 

The fairies are too delicate to go outside which means I may have to have a dedicated fairy space indoors.

Yippee.

And this charming hedgehog in a teapot. He will surely find a place in the garden somewhere.

Harvest Home

The harvesting is well under way. It`s a very exciting time but one where we have to think carefully where all the produce is going.

Will it be frozen? 

Will it be jam? 

Will family members want some?

Will friends want some?

Or will we eat it?

 

 

 

Today we picked the plums. It was a great crop but we needed a ladder to get a lot of them. One branch has split under the weight and will have to be pruned back.

Quite a few campers had a tasty treat but maybe not such a tasty treat when the plum had a grub in it!!

 

This afternoon I have made a second lot of plum jam. It sets very easily. De-stoning is a bit fiddly. My sister leaves the stones in and then ladles them out. Maybe I will try that next.

The pumpkins are ripening early. I don`t know why.

Steve has dug up potatoes and I`ve bunched up statice to sell.

At the end of today this was our kitchen table.

 

Tomato chutney tomorrow I think plus some more jam.

 

Stumperies and Butterflies

The Fairy and Dinosaur Day was a great success.

We found ourselves making over 75 more wands on the go and the polytunnel became an impromptu wand making factory. They weren`t quite up to the standard of the first 60. But the children kept pouring through.

The garden was crowded with wand decoration, glitter transfers, picnics, searching for dinosaur eggs and letter writing to the fairies.

Thank goodness Tim opened the field for parking.

 

£450 was raised for the Dragonflies charity, which supports bereaved children.

Here is Paul and his family breaking open dinosaur eggs to find out what`s inside.

Here is another family enjoying visiting the unicorn.

The rain held off until late afternoon when we at last, had time to walk the trail albeit with umbrellas and macs.

We managed to complete the new stumpery in good time. Our friends, Nick and Sally, brought us some lovely ferns which have since been added.

Over the last week or so the garden has been full of insects and in particular butterflies. They are loving the marjoram, the buddliea and scabious.

There are meadow browns, peacocks, blues, red admirals and of course whites.

 

Happy days